


A Study in Amaranth

by TrufflesTheMushroom



Series: Words!verse [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrufflesTheMushroom/pseuds/TrufflesTheMushroom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(On semi-permanent hiatus.) In the Queendom of Albion's capital city of Lowonidon, the local watchmen are baffled by a sudden rash of self-slaughters. Meanwhile, a healing knight, invalided home from the battlefield, meets a strange alchemy-obsessed wizard. The two take advantage of the power of Words to form an unusual friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Watching the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a fantasy retelling of A Study in Pink. Take this fic as a sort of exercise in developing the world of Lowonidon and as the first foray into the Words!verse.

**Act One: A Study in**   
**Amaranth**

 **Scene One: Watching The Night**

-

John woke up screaming, blood pounding in his ears and spreading red across his vision- erratic, ripping his feigned normalcy away, stalking him in the night like a beast that'd decided to hunt him until his blood coloured the sky red. Nightmares.

He was a short man- built sturdy and strong like the farmhand his parents had hoped he'd be. Thick fingers dusted across with thin, soft, sandy hair trembled now, constantly, as John pushed himself off the cot and tried to breathe.

In, out. In, out. Easy. In a few moments he had righted himself again, ashamed.

All too aware that he was utterly alone, John Watson sat by himself on his little cot, hands tucked neatly between his knees like a pup, and thought for a while about taking his sword and slicing through his own neck. Cleanly. Effectively.

And feeding the nightmare beast that hunted him in the night so thoroughly that it roared with the triumph of the kill before disappearing once more into the deep unknown of nonexistence.

-

Somewhere in Lowonidon , deep in the black emptiness of the night, someone swallowed a phial-full of a substance that smelt and tasted of nothing.

-

John didn't ever bring up the War with the medicine woman he saw every Fourth Week-Day. He didn't think it was necessary. Much of what he'd say, she'd have heard before.

She would nod, perfunctorily, sometimes giving a small _hmm_ noise to show that she was listening raptly, and give him her undivided attention as he avoided the subject with the matchless obstinacy appropriate for a knight of his class. He would check her notes, sometimes guiltily, sometimes jadedly, and the medicine woman would always sneakily cover them with the broad side of her quill and give him a look.

He didn't need help, John told himself. All he needed was a break. And some time. And a massive damned hole in his memory.

The medicine woman (young? Quite pretty, but too aloof for John's taste)  tried to coerce him into speaking. She was one of _those_ people, the ones who knew about ancient things, or _thought_ they knew from scrolls and diagrams. She would speak gently about the _power of words_ , and John would grimace and stubbornly keep his mouth shut.

He would remain as he was- stationary, stoic, an empty shell of a man- until the end of his days.

But the medicine  woman wouldn't give up. She would tenderly hint to him to take up a quill and at least write- _words_ , any _words_. _Words_ about how he was feeling- what he remembered, thing's he'd seen or heard or done.

Anything that ever happened- just to write _words_.

And John would tilt his head and regard her with whatever was left of his soul.

"Nothing ever happens to me."

-

 **Words**

 **A Tale of Magic, Intrigue and High Adventure**

-

The villagers hounded the silver-haired Watchman mercilessly. Atop his wooden podium, he scrubbed his face in his hands and wished the day to be over.

"But there's no such thing as joined self-slaughter."

"Well, apparently, there is."

"Are you saying that there's no connection between these three deaths? People have actually been taking the same poison and killing themselves and there's nothing else that links them?"

"That's what myself and the other Watchers have been trying to find, and no, we haven't found it yet. But we _are_ looking- obviously, there is one."

Suddenly, the ground began to shudder and shiver. A slight tremor, more like a numb little buzz of pure cold, shot up through the earth into the villagers' feet. It entered their bodies, riding up their veins , pouring itself into the crystals in their pockets before it leapt out and danced into the air, trailing up until it dissolved like mist in front of their faces, and a tiny whisper, a deep, rumbling little whisper, echoed across the town Meeting Hall.

" _Wrong!_ "

As the Head Watchman took his head in his hands, a woman on his right hurriedly addressed the criers. "If you all heard that, please ignore it."

A butcher frowned, wild-eyed. "I just heard a whisper. Just now, in my ear. 'Wrong'."

"Yes- well- ignore that. If there are no more questions..."

A shout rose up from the back. "If these really are just self-slaughters, then what are you searching for?"

The silver-haired head Watchman, who had been silently kicking himself, tried to gather his words calmly. "Well, they're clearly linked. Um... it's an... _unusual_ situation. And we've got our best people probing around-"

And again, another tremor ran up through the earth into the meeting hall's inhabitant, materializing as a low, gleeful whisper into their ears.

" _Wrong!_ "

A local blacksmith, thoroughly disconcerted, stammered, "It just says 'wrong' again."

The Watchwoman quickly interjected, "One more question?"

A seamstress gestured with a bony hand and called out in a reedy voice, "Is there any chance that these are _murders_? And if they are, is this the work of some demon?"

At this, the silver-haired man shot her a look. "Well. I know that you like to gossip about things like these, but these do appear to be self-slaughters. For instance, the three had all clearly taken the poison on their own..."

"Yes. But if they _are_ murders, how do people keep themselves safe?"

He'd had just about enough.

"Well, _don't self-slaughter_."

At least the seamstress had the gall to look offended.

The Head Watchman drew himself up to his full height on the podium. "Obviously, this is a frightening time for people, but all anyone has to do is take care and act reasonably. We are all as safe as we want to be."

" _Wrong!_ "

And a stronger little wave of vibrations ran up the Head Watchman's feet, right through his sturdy leather boots, up his spine, curling around his own crystal, across his skin and into his ear. It rumbled, arrogantly, almost sweetly, " _You know where to find me_."

The silver-haired man sighed a long-suffering groan as he muttered his thanks to the audience's general direction and left, his right-hand woman in tow.

"You've got to stop him doing that," she insisted pointedly, wringing her scroll in her hands as if it were a neck. "He's making us look like idiots."

"If you can tell me _how_   he does it, I'll stop him."

-

The chill was even more bitter now that John had gotten used to the heat of Pashtun. On most days, he wandered aimlessly around the sprawling city of Lowonidon, re-acclimating himself (or attempting to re-acclimate himself) to life as it should be. He had no other pastimes save retracing his own steps from years before, challenging himself to see how far he could go without blanking out and losing his way. He tried to focus, he truly did.

Lowonidon seemed to shift with every hobbling step he took, so it was a difficult challenge. The people skirted the edges of the  River Tamesas with hurried steps and bowed heads, mindful of the crippled sandy-haired knight home from war as they went about their business. Men led horses over cobbled streets and amiably shouted abuse at one another. The women gossiped and drove geese, grubby little children in tow. Taverns were louder than he remembered, and bridges quieter. The leaves fell and no one but John gave them any notice.

It was home. It was John's home, but it felt like what he often imagined a proper mother to feel like after years of nothing but blood and screams- distanced.

Surrounded by so  much, and still alone. There were no _words_ in the Albionic language to express John's feelings.

There was no _word_ empty enough.

-

The air was cold, crisp and clean the day that Michael recognized John.

"I heard you were abroad somewhere getting stabbed at, what happened?"

"I got stabbed."

He was unsure of himself (he had changed), and  sharing his quandaries had never been his way, but soon the nightmare beast was back, clouding the back of his mind with nothing but troubles. The good man wrung his hand and the two began to reminisce. Michael, son of Arthur of Stamford House had married well, and had been teaching Healing at Bartholomew's, the same House of Healing that the two had been apprenticed to, years before.

It was all John could do to keep a cordial expression on his face as he shrugged and numbered his current worries, as nonchalantly as he could manage. Anything to avoid talking about the War.

"You know I couldn't afford Lowonidon on an army pension."

"Ah, and you couldn't bear to be anywhere else. That's not the John of Watson that I know."

"Well, I'm not that John of Watson." It was quick, and after saying it John felt sort of silly, but it couldn't be helped.

After a brief pause, Michael pointed out, "What, couldn't Harry help?"

John nearly snorted. "Yeah. Like that's going to happen."

"I dunno. You could share  a bower or something."

"Who'd want me for a housemate?"

It was then, at that moment, that Michael felt a spark. It was small, nearly unnoticeable, just a little sudden bright feeling that suddenly blossomed in his chest, but Michael, son of Arthur of Stamford House, practical of a man he was, was no fool. He knew _the power of words_ and the magic inherent in coincidences. He laughed.

“You’re the second person to say those _exact same words_ to me today."

Because there was no way, no way that exact same words can mean anything less than fate.

The spark warmed the air, and a little hairline crack started blossoming in John's shell. A tiny droplet of hope seemed in, worming its way into the emptiness.

"Who's the first?"

Whoever he was, he couldn't be all bad.

-

Somewhere not too far away, a tall, pale man that sizzled with magic unwrapped something in a large bag. He gave it a quick sniff.

"How fresh?"

"Just in; 67, natural passing. He used to work here," replied the pretty little thing beside him, a tinge sadly. “I knew him. He was nice."

After a quick look, the man neatly wrapped it back up and swirled around, his great black robe sweeping about his legs.

A dangerous little half-grin blossomed over his face.

"Fine. We'll start with an enhanced-bruising spell on the riding-crop."

-


	2. Duality, Normalcy

-

 **Scene Two: Duality, Normalcy**

-

Two men lived alone in Lowonidon, the capital city of the Queendom of Albion.

-

One was a knight, fallen in battle, returned home from the faraway land of Pashtun. He was a warm soul, the kind of man that did things for his own reasons, a solid thing made of all the strength and tenacity of a beast but the bottomless heart of the best kind of human. His hair was like dirty sand and his eyes were the deepest blues hidden deep in the shadows of mountains- he was short and tanned, grimaced and laughed often, and he wrote with his left hand. He wore the simplest of tunics over brown breeches, a leather belt, sensible leather shoes and an array of different shapeless, colorless doublets, and on most days, a frown.

He was, in many ways, broken. He no longer found any joy in living as he had before (studiously, good-naturedly) and instead did nothing much save contemplate in silence.

The War had put out his fire. He had saved many lives with his knowledge of Healing, but the death around him eventually ate him up from the inside, alive in the physical sense, but somehow left open and raw by the sheer duality of life (equal parts beautiful and horrific). He was empty.

He was John, of the House of Watson (Docere), and he didn't put much faith in _the power of words._

 _He never shared his true name with anyone._

-

The other was a wizard, a secret Watchman of the night, notorious, feared, loathed and worshipped. He was a cold mind, the type of man that did things for his own reasons, a sharp thing made of all the quickness and sagacity of a demon but the fathomless mind of the best kind of human. His hair was black and unruly, wild around his head, and his eyes were the pale blue of a sky during the coldest morning of the year. He was tall and pale, often sniffed and turned away, and he wrote with his right hand. He wore a heavy black cloak with a blue neck-warmer over the richest silk robes in mystifying purples and silvers, and on most days, a frown.

He was, in many ways, helpless. He was running on nothing but his own follies- he had long ago abandoned all hopes of finding normalcy, and instead embraced loneliness like a friend.

Life was, to him, just something he had to put up with until the inevitable end. Like the people around him (stupid little things), life would soon fade away into nothingness until all he had left was darkness, and his own brilliant, perfect self- and he often told himself that that was exactly what he wanted.

He was Sherlock, of the House of Holmes (Marchis), and he lived to test the furthest limits of any and all _words_ he could find.

 _He never shared his true name with anyone._

-

Two men lived alone.

-


	3. Potential Housemates

-

 **Scene Three: Potential Housemates**

-

Sherlock Holmes, tall and pale, whipped a corpse enthusiastically with a thick black riding crop sizzling with magic.

-

When the beating finally subsided, the mousy little woman in the burial chamber quelled her horror and worked up her courage. "So. Bad day, was it?" Molly tried so very hard to make small talk, bless her soul.

Sherlock ignored her completely. He whipped out a tiny wad of folded-up parchment from a pocket deep inside his robes and started scratching at it furiously with a blunt quill. "I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man's alibi depends on it. Send me a _word_."

"... Listen, I was wondering. Maybe later, when you're finished-"

"Are you wearing rouge? You weren't wearing rouge before."

"I, uh... I refreshed it a bit."

After giving the silly thing an appraising look, Sherlock went right back to his note-taking. "Sorry, you were saying?"

This time, Molly answered through gritted teeth. "I was wondering if you'd like to have kahve."

"Black, two scoops of sugar, please. I'll be in the upper chambers."

He left without another _word,_ leaving Molly alone with nothing but a hideously bruised corpse for company.

-

John limped unsteadily into the deepest chamber of St. Bartholomew's and nearly did a double-take.

"Bit different from my day."

The place had changed. John had fondly looked back on his days as an Apprentice Healer during the quietest days out in the field of battle, and he often dreamed idly of the warm little basements under the stone where he and his mates had practiced eagerly, with bright eyes.

The chamber, which had been simple and bright before he'd left, was now... chilly. Cold, even. The whole room had been painted a deep, searing white, and it was lit all around with the pale, wintry glow of what he recognized to be magical fire. All manner of spindly silver objects were floating around without any discernible direction or purpose, bouncing off the walls with a small _ping_ sound. The wooden tables were absolutely covered in ancient, yellowing tomes stacked higher than he could see over, and behind it all, stooped low over a shallow basin of water, was a wizard.

John could tell he was a wizard at first glance. He could instantly feel it in the air, cold, sudden, electric.

Magic lying in wait, sharper than the sharpest blade, hungry, devastating. Beautiful.

-

Sherlock looked up when he heard the wooden door creak open to see Michael of Stamford enter with a smaller man he had never seen before.

Immediately he began to _look_.

Flannel tunic, horrendous grey doublet with equally horrendous belt. Brown breeches, good weave but worn. White birch cane, completely unnecessary. Approximately thirty-seven years old. Harmless as a doe.

He glanced back into the basin and then reached sideways for a fiddly little instrument on the table adjacent.

"Bit different from my day."

Stamford replied, "Oh, you have no idea."

Without looking up from the basin, Sherlock suddenly said, "Mich, can I borrow your energy crystal? Mine isn't connecting to the magic network."

"And what's wrong with the land vein?"

"I prefer a more potent connection."

Michael gave an apologetic little purse of his lips. "Sorry. Left mine in the wagon."

The short man warily spoke up. "Here, use mine." Fishing around in the pockets of his (atrocious) doublet, he extracted a good-sized, pointed energy crystal on a silver chain and held it out.

"Oh. Thank you."

As Sherlock pushed the chair away and began advancing, Michael pointed and clarified, "An old friend of mine. John of Watson House."

Nearer now, Sherlock could see the man's wrists peeking out from the sleeve of his (atrocious) doublet. Paler than his hands- abroad- recently back. Military hair, sheared short in the practical style of commoners. And under the hair, a browned face, worn and soft around the edges. A kicked-pup expression. Frown and laugh lines together. Dark blue eyes coupled with sandy hair, calluses from labor work as well as studying with a quill, so likely a farm boy from the Northwest that studied at St. Bartholomew's. Objectively, the face of a middle-aged farmer-turned-Healer-turned-knight. Subjectively, as near to a likeable face as Sherlock could grudgingly describe.

Sherlock took the crystal delicately, stepping a polite distance away and holding the crystal to his lips briefly with both hands, _breathing a word_ (" _Mittere_ ") and the sending quick surges of telepathy through the air. He could see John of Watson House looking vaguely around.

Time to put on a show.

"Pashtun or Uruk?"

-

From behind a stack of books, Stamford grinned and shook his head a little.

Beside the tall man's back, John froze and quirked his head to the side. After a pause, he gave a little _tsk_ noise and said, "Sorry?"

A quick turn of the head. "Which was it, Pashtun or Uruk?"

 John glanced, open-mouthed, at Stamford, who simply smiled and did a half-shrug with one pudgy shoulder. He shifted uncomfortably on one steady leg before finally asking in a perfectly level voice, "Pashtun. Sorry, how did you-" and then the door opened.

"Ah, Molly! Kahve, thank you."

John could vaguely register a comment or two about lip-rouge before the tall man wordlessly handed his crystal back to him and the cute, mousy little Molly skirted off with a squeak. The tall man started off once more to the other end of the coolly-lit chamber, sipping at his kahve with a twist in his lip. He set down the earthenware mug of a faraway table and rearranged his robes around his shoulders. Looking contemplative, the man asked suddenly, "How do you feel about the lira?"

"Sorry, _what?_ "

"I play the lira when I'm thinking. Sometimes I don't talk for days on end- would that bother you?" It was as if the man was deliberately toying with him, piercing his body entire with a gaze like a sharp chill. With a crooked grin, the man stated simply, "Potential housemates should know the worst about each other."

After a brief, stoic pause, John turned towards Michael.

"You. You told him about me?"

Michael briefly paused from studying a mysterious phial full of reddish potion before shaking his head solemnly. "Not a _word_."

"Then who said anything about housemates?"

"I did. Told Mich this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a housemate for. How here he is, just after lunch, with an old friend clearly just home from braving the battlefield in Pashtun." The man was a whirlwind of speech and movement at once. As he spoke (without pause for breath) he shrugged on a large black cloak over his close-fitting silk tunic. As he wound a blue neck-warmer around his head, he even had the daring to feign modesty. "Not a difficult leap."

Fighting to check the nightmare beast clawing to get out, John kept his voice steady and asked, "How did you know about Pashtun?"

"I know of a nice little place in central Lowonidon. Together, we ought to be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening. At the seventh hour. Sorry, got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the burial chamber."

And he simply passed by John as if it were nothing at all, reaching the door in a few long strides.

And John couldn't believe it.

"Is that it?"

"Is that _what_?"

The two men turned to face each other.

"We've only just met, and we're going to go look at a cottage."

"Problem?"

John threw a disbelieving grin at Michael.

"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your _name_."

Names were intrinsically important. John didn't trust anyone, and nameless strangers even less. The fact that he didn't even have a _word_ to connect to a face was enough to set him on edge. At that moment, all John needed was some solid ground.

After a heavy hush, the man stared deep into his eyes. His voice dropped a tone lower, and he never dropped his gaze.

And then he spoke.

"I know you're a Healing Knight and you've been invalided home from Pashtun. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him- possibly because he's a drunkard, more likely he recently abandoned his wife. And I know that your local medicine woman thinks your limp is just a ghost wound; quite correctly, I'm afraid."

His long, pale face danced all over with expressions- arrogance feigning nonchalance, cool-headed triumph, childish glee.

"That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?"

And then he walked out the door, pausing for a second before shutting it. He stepped back into the white chamber, propping the heavy wooden door open with one thin, gloved hand and looked John again in the eye.

"The _name_ is Sherlock of Holmes House, and the place is the second lodge to the furthest right on Baker's Street, marked with the numerals 221. Afternoon."

Sherlock of Holmes House departed with a cheeky wink with his black curls flouncing behind him, and Michael nodded knowingly at John's incredulous stare.

"Yeah. He's always like that."

John was left standing awkwardly in the wake of this surreal first meeting, leaning unsteadily against his white birch cane and wondering idly what he'd gotten himself into.

Awed.

-

The little rent hut was dark, the windows boarded up by the previous tenant. Little slats of sunshine seeped in through the cracks as John sat down on his lumpy little bed and thought. Taking his crystal out of his pocket and fiddling with it, he brought it up to his lips and _whispered a few words_ into its shiny surface.

" _Placere, Prior Mittere_."

He held it up to his ear and strai ned to hear the last thought transferred- he only caught the _words_ _'ladder', 'brother', 'green'_ and ' _seize'_  before the connection faded away.

What?

Momentarily flabbergasted, John stared at his crystal a bit before finally giving up on trying to make sense of it all. He brought the crystal back up to his lips, whispered " _Circare_. Sherlock of the House of Holmes."

To his shock, his crystal began to glow intensely in his fingertips. It began to gleam in the darkness of the empty little hut, and soon a blur of solid light began to appear in front of John, floating a bit before taking solid shape and dropping unceremoniously in his lap.

It was a book- a medium-sized, heavy, leather-bound book in the new style. Upon inspection, it was titled _The Sciens of Deduction_ , written by none other than Sherlock of Holmes House.

John sighed. There was nothing else to do.

He flipped to the first page and started reading.

-

In a tall wooden lodging somewhere not too far away, a fair, middle-aged woman in matching amaranth-lined dress, cloak and shoes reached down for a little glass phial full of white-speckled berries.

-


	4. Interlude and Exposition

-

 **Scene Four: Interlude and Exposition**

 **-**

 _Words had power, and there was power in words._

It was never the way of the Albionic to change. Grow, yes. But never change.

They were a race of people that were very set in their ways- they would use _words_ but skirt around them if necessary, knowing all too well the dangers of saying too much. The Albionic chose their words carefully, treating them with respect, and so lived prosperously on their misty, wet little islands for centuries. They were quite happy to be cross most of the time and drunk the other times, mumbling and milling about and sending _strongly-worded_ letters to each other when the need should arise.

In all, they thrived in relative peace. Travelling peoples from lands far away as well as close by came to Albion to learn _the magic of_ _words,_ trying their luck in finding some peace of their own in a world full of darkness.

Lowonidon was the center of it all, a hustling and bustling sprawl of wood and metal and people that flowed and expanded along with the River Tamesas. It was a great city that grew by the day, absolutely covered in dust and condensed dew and satisfaction. Children scabbed their knees chasing each other through the grimy streets, trading sweets for little discarded treasures found at roadsides. The people kept to themselves and huddled around familiar faces and _names_ in warm little pubs, working hard and dreaming languorously about the businesses of the world.

The wizards, few and far between, lived in the shadows of the city, known to all but identifiable by hardly any. They were the ones who devoted their lives to the stretching and testing of _words_ , and the magic of naming and identifying. It was rumored that they knew everything- that they could see into the past and future, that they were actually demons in human glamours, that they could kill you with a look.

The Holmes family embraced these notions with pleasure.

Knowing that someone you knew was a wizard was regarded as quite similar to knowing that they were an invert. It wasn't _embarrassing_ but _awkward_. It distanced people. They were often referred to in conversations (along the lines of "Hey! I'm no bigot. A very good friend of mine is a wizard, actually."). There was a stigma. A dangerous, if dignified, stigma. Therefore, Sherlock Holmes grew up feeling quite alone.

John of Watson House, on the other hand, was always surrounded by peers. He was a solemn boy that gave cheeky answers to clever questions, and he worked and played equally thoroughly. Amazing everyone in his small Northwestern village by simultaneously taking over the family farm as well as studying hard enough to gain acceptance into the most prestigious Healing Apprenticeship in Lowonidon, John became an accomplished and favored Healer at a ripe young age.

The War had changed that.

Now there was an intermittent tremor in his arm that he couldn't shake. The screams and blood, inescapable darkness and pain had ripped everything from him. From the moment that the enemy's sword had impaled his shoulder clean through, John became an immovable object that rolled around in the dirt, restless and hunted by a beast in the darkness of nonexistence.

John was stalked in the night by his own memories. No one who passed him by at night would ever guess that such a small man with a face like a pup could be capable of such profound rage, but it was there nonetheless, constantly putting him on edge. And so, he walked, one foot in front of the other, a secret hiding inside the plain black scabbard hanging at his waist.

He often dreamt of running again, heels kicking up sand and flecks of dried blood and the sizzling leftover magic of the enemy wizards, letting out a massive war cry and charging straight ahead into the face of danger, twice the broken man he was now.

But when he woke up, sweating and gasping and wrecked, he was just a little man once more, living a life in-between the planes of existence, the space between _words_ on a page.

-


End file.
